If you buy something through our links, ToolGuyd might earn an affiliate commission.

Home Depot just kicked off their Holiday 2018 tiered power tools savings event. Thank you to everyone who wrote in about this!

The premise of the promo is simple – buy a select cordless power tool combo kit by Dewalt, Milwaukee, Ridgid, Makita, or Ryobi, and get your choice of free bonus tools.

Advertisement

This is a 2-tiered event. Buy the smaller or less expensive promo combo kit, and you can choose (1) free bonus tool or accessory. Buy the larger or more expensive promo kit, and you can choose from (2) free bonus tools or accessories.

If I recall correctly, some of the starter kits (Dewalt, I believe) sold out fast and then almost continually last year. Some of the bonus tools are also in limited supplies.

Home Depot doesn’t explicitly mention the end dates for the promos, but they should run throughout the 2018 winter holiday shopping season.

There will be LOTS more tool deal posts like this one. Subscribe to our newsletterto get the latest tool reviews, news, and deals right in your inbox. (Check the “daily updates” box to ensure you get notified in time.)

Below, the images are clickable for your convenience, and there is light commentary about the deals.

The selection is about the same here, and the new Dewalt brushless cordless sander is also an option as one of the bonus tools. Those combos are currently sold out, but I’d expect for Dewalt to be able to restock soon. Or, they might be waiting for their first shipment of this newly released tool.

This is probably going to be one of the most popular of all the tiered brand offers.

Buy the Milwaukee M18 cordless hammer drill and impact driver kit, get your choice of one free bonus power tool or accessory. The options are really good, including their M18 cordless sander and Radius LED site light (priced at $149).

Step up to the Milwaukee M18 4-tool cordless combo kit, and you get (2) free bonuses. There don’t look to be any different choices here. This combo will be in competition with the Dewalt second tier deal as best-selling, since it essentially lets you build your own M18 6-tool combo kit for $399.

Buy this Ridgid 18V Gen5X brushless drill and impact driver kit, and you get one free bonus item. The bonus options include 2 types of Octane brushless saws, their brushless router, and brushless circular saw. This allows you to create a great 3-tool combo for just $199.

Spend a little more, and you can get the Ridgid 18V 6-tool cordless combo kit for $349, and then you still get 2 more free bonus tool choices. That allows you to create your own 8-tool cordless power tool combo kit for $349. Although the core kit isn’t brushless, many of the bonus items are.

As with the other deals, you could also opt for a battery or battery packs as your bonus items.

Makita’s first tier features a brushless hammer drill and impact driver combo kit, for $299. The bonus items are compelling here too, with some of the options including a 2-pack of 5.0Ah battery packs, their brushless cordless router, and a 6-1/2″ circular saw.

The second tier features a Makita 18V brushless hammer drill, impact driver, and also a brushless 6-1/2″ circular saw. The batteries are also different – you get (1) compact Li-ion battery pack, and (1) LXT higher capacity battery pack.

Bonus options are similar as for the first tier. If I were going with this option, I’d go with the cordless router and 2x 5.0Ah battery pack bonus choices.

Buy a Ryobi brushless hammer drill/driver, and you get to pick your bonus from among 51 choices, including their 6 gallon wet/dry vacuum, brushless circular saw, and 6.0Ah high capacity battery pack, as some of the higher-valued options.

I did see the same “pick any two” deal and they have same saw on offer as HD. You’re right that there’s another deal up however I’ve already got that drill and I would like some of the 5AH batteries that these have.

I’ve thought about this recently. I think since retailers still do 10% or 15% or the occasional 20% off, tool companies expect “expanders” to use those to expand their collection, rather than some manufacturer promo. They do throw in the occasional “buy a starter battery kit get a free tool” or the reverse as well to semi-satisfy folks looking to expand but without core tools involved. So if you need batteries but have core tools, you have to find one of those promotions to get random bare tools you want, or else just use a regular % discount to buy the batteries you need. Same with bare tools, if you just need some bare tools but no batteries, you use a % off deal to get what you want, and these other promotions really aren’t geared towards you.

I’d like to see a company do a “buy two bare tools get one free” type promo, but I’d imagine that’d be an even more limited audience than buy batteries get bare tools, and people would still only go for it if it included the more non-core bare tools. So leaving that to retailers to run % off sales is still a better idea.

Granted, finding those types of sales at the big box stores anymore is almost a non-starter. I don’t think I’ve seen anything more than a 5% off coupon to either Home Depot or Lowe’s in a long long time, they rely on the buy something get something promotions. But they also don’t cater as much to the folks looking to expand with specialty tools, so maybe that’s a calculated play on the market they want. Sell a contractor a drill, they’ll eventually break it and buy another, and likely need several over their time anyway. Sell a contractor a specialized cordless electrical tool (say a cable cutter), other than jaws and batteries, they likely won’t buy another since it’s so specialty. Sell a homeowner a drill, they’ll let the batteries sit and die and then need new ones or need to upgrade to a better drill too. Sell a homeowner a cable cutter, that just doesn’t happen. Leave the specialty stuff for the specialty stores or online stores that can support that inventory, and let them run those kind of promotions.

I’m hoping to find a good deal this holiday season on a cordless SDS Max rotary hammer drill. In comparing the Dewalt DCH481B with the Milwaukee 2717-20, I find that the Milwaukee does not have any vibration control and this seems to play a big role in most of the reviews I have seen. It is a factor for me as well and the overall consensus points toward the Dewalt as a better tool.

I agree that Bosch make some terrific tools as I own a variety of their tools, including a corded SDS Plus rotary hammer drill model #RH328VC and it’s great. But when I checked the Bosch site I found they don’t make a cordless SDS Max, only SDS Plus. Also I really don’t want to add yet another battery platform unless there are no other good choices.
Thank you both for the input.

The Milwaukee sds max is a winner , no contest vs the dewalt, Milwaukee will win on this drill, mine got for $345 eBay new, just watch it, Home Depot screwed me so I buy online,no sales tax and from co that have good return policy,so far I’ve saved Home Depot is sly over priced and you get jammed on the 7% sales tax in Pa in hd

It is unfortunate that the Ridgid tool set is for their brushed motor 18V tools. I had a bigger set in my cart when I discovered they were not brushless motors. The brushless kit has fewer tools and is a little bit more, and excluded from the promotion.

There wasn’t one damn thing in there that interests me.
I just don’t need any more Drills, Saws, Or Batteries.
All these offers are worthless.
One more thing – When I Did need batteries, my Home Depot said they had Several in stock. They couldn’t find any in the store. They Did Order some for me, and screwed up the address, because they said they couldn’t get them sent To the store, because the computer said they Already had some at the store.
That kind of ridiculous service is why I quit shopping at Sears six or eight years ago.

Generally, I’m asked to keep an eye out for deals on cordless combo kit, miters saws, table saws, blanket percent-off deals, and deals on new releases. But I’m always up to being on the lookout for other types of specific deals.

Not Joe, but I’d really love to see more deals (not that they’re necessarily out there) on bare tools to expand my line. I’m already on 3 battery platforms, which is at least one too many, and given that unless we’re either new to cordless power tools or looking to switch platform, most of us already have the drill/impact and more often than not recipro/circular saws covered – it seems to get something I want (like maybe an angle grinder, jigsaw, or light) I’ve got to buy more of what I already have…

Brands are willing to aggressively discount certain tools to get new customers into the platform, or further anchor existing users. Bare tools? Well, they know that you’re going to buy them anyway – at least that’s what I believe. It’s also a numbers game – there are only so many tools that brands can produce in promotional quantities. If they stray too far from promotions that have been proven to work, inventory gets left on store or warehouse shelves, and nobody’s happy when that happens. The best bet to save on bare tools is to take advantage of dollar-off or percentage-off deals, and I try to post about those whenever I find them.

I think you’re right – these promos are more about customer acquisition than rewarding loyalty. Once we’ve dropped $500-1000 on a starter kit, a few spare batteries, and an extra tool or two we’re committed to paying full price for the add-ons because starting that process over isn’t one anyone would relish – our loyalty at that point is to our own wallet as much as a brand.

The best I’ve been able to do for stuff I want but don’t need right away is to wait to come across a Milwaukee rep doing an in-store demo day – chat them up and they’ll usually toss in a battery or two if you go buy a tool, which certainly isn’t nothing. A few months ago I bought a 3/8″ ratchet and the rep gave me a 3.0 amp hour compact battery – $60 freebie on a $150 purchase.

Yes, from what I’ve seen I would agree that bare tools are rarely discounted beyond the percent off type deals. I posted above about my desire for a good deal on a cordless SDS Max this season but I’m beginning to come around to the idea of a cordless SDS+ instead. I know that the SDS+ will do 90% of my needs but I also have the need to drive some grounding rods as well as driving rebar for stakes, etc. So in looking for SDS bits to drive these I found that the majority are only available in SDS Max and thus I started to question whether the SDS+ was going to have the power to do the job. Acme Tools has a Milwaukee bit that will fit my SDS+ corded Bosch unit, so I ordered it and plan to run a few tests to see how it performs in the sandy soil of South Florida before I decide on my cordless SDS purchase.

In my experience so far, eBay isn’t a great place to look for tools – the used tools aren’t much cheaper than new, and the new tools are the same price as everywhere else (and often the same sellers, such as CPO).

For bare tools, besides the 10%-20% blanket discounts, the best bets seem to be getting lucky with HD clearance (sometimes 50% off), or refurbished from CPO Tools and such, or if you’re a Ryobi/Ridgid user, DirectToolsOutlet (but watch Direct Tools – their prices are often same or higher as HD, but if you’re careful you can get bargains; I just ordered the Ryobi hybrid fan for $25 with shipping)

I wouldn’t quite phrase it that way, because they could benefit upgraders also.

Think of the contractor who has an older drill or impact. They work just fine, but are bigger, bulkier, heavier, and perhaps slower or less featured than what’s available today.

Promos like these can help drive sales.

If you walk into a dealership and say “I will absolutely buy a car today, right here,” you’re probably not going to see the same discounts as you might if you have more time and were open to shopping around.

A lot of sales and promotions aren’t designed to save you money on what you were definitely going to buy, they’re designed to win you over to a sale.

There are others, like the blanket promos, that still save you money. It’s not the same as what they’re willing to do to get you through the door and into the platform, but those discounts are better than paying full price.

I just bought some Stanley boxes for all my PEX and copper fittings but they just aren’t as big and adjustable. It was too beautiful so I bought two…

However, what’s with the floppy side arms Ridgid? All the other boxes have side clasps that stay in place, these just flap around. I’ll probably add a dab of silicone and let it dry so they stay in place better.

My prediction is that craigslist nationwide will be flooded with drill/impact kits just so people can get the free items to their liking. Last thing I need is another darn drill or impact, have 5-6 cordless of each from different brands, several corded different brands.

I wish all the tool makers would realize that at a certain point people don’t need another drill and driver. I think last year Ridgid did a promotion that if you bought TWO tools (from a list) you would get the battery/charger starter kit. I think a lot of people would be more interested in that type of promotion.

My suggestion, which some might call revolutionary, would be to just drop the prices on everything they make by some uniform percentage for the entire holiday season. That might earn them some loyalty.

So I took the bait and bought the Ridgid 6 piece brushed motor kit. I am still waiting on the bonus tools as HD can’t seem to track when something doesn’t go beyond their warehouse. The 6 Piece Ridgid kit is all Gen4 stuff and the Drill Driver lacks a light, the hammer dril function, and does not have a belt loop attachment. I justified the purchase with the lifetime warranty on the two 4ah batteries, the radio, Jobmax, and bonus tools.

For the most part the Ryobi holiday power tool combos are a good deal. the problem in the immediate Charlotte, NC area is that if you want any of the $259 deals you most likely will not find them in stores. An associate informed me that you will have to order them on line for shipment to store or your home. I think there are 45 different combos offered.

Milwaukee and Dewalt tools are neck in neck as far as quality goes. However if you buy the best quality tools why not get your choice of ANY other tool, no limitations on which tool will be your free choice! It’s not like they won’t make a profit!

HD tool deal reduced by extra $30 now. 12-24-208, was $259, now, $229 with same 2 tool offer. Wish I had waited, bought at higher price, but still a good deal. I did not know they would extend offer after Christmas, especially reduced further.

An example of “you snooze, you lose.” I’ve been watching HDs price on the Ridgid folding miter saw stand. I even spoke to someone in their corporate nest who said she didn’t see anywhere that it was a time-limited sale price. So, I waited to see if I could find a better deal on a saw, and wouldn’t you know the stand tripled in price the day after Christmas?

fred on The Best Hook and Pick Set?: “Moody also make spring hooks and sets: https://www.amazon.com/Threaded-Spring-Tool-Kit-Light/dp/B0026GI62A/ref=sr_1_1?keywords=B0026GI62A&qid=1558784803&s=industrial&sr=1-1”